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Allegations that Cosby, 77, drugged and sexually assaulted
several young women decades ago gained renewed attention after
comedian Hannibal Buress called him a rapist during a stand-up
comedy routine last month.
"Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited
allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced," said John P.
Schmitt, Cosby's attorney, in a statement. "The fact that they
are being repeated does not make them true."
Neither Cosby nor his representatives will comment further on
the allegations, Schmitt added.
The lawyer's statement comes a day after the airing of a
National Public Radio interview in which Cosby, who is married,
declined to answer questions about the sexual assault
accusations. He has never been charged with the alleged crimes.
Among his accusers is former aspiring actress Barbara Bowman,
who wrote in a Washington Post op-ed this month that Cosby had
assaulted her on multiple occasions in 1985, when she was 17,
including one occasion when he drugged her at his New York City
brownstone.
Bowman said she never went to the police because she feared she
would not be believed.
She said she had prepared to testify in a lawsuit filed by
another woman, Andrea Constand, who claimed Cosby drugged and
sexually assaulted her. That suit was settled in 2006 for an
undisclosed amount of money, and Bowman never testified.
Another woman, Tamara Green, came forward in 2005 saying Cosby
drugged and groped her when she was a 19-year-old model in the
1970s.
Cosby is best known for playing Cliff Huxtable, the father of an
affluent African-American family on the TV sitcom "The Cosby
Show" that was a top-ranked program from 1984 to 1992, making
Cosby a wealthy man.
He is currently developing a new sitcom for NBC.
(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Crispian Balmer)
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Cosby will not discuss sex assault allegations: lawyer
